


Rueful Fate

by Justphoenix



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Gen, Not Canon Compliant, Post-Episode: s04e13 Journey's End, martha doesn't marry mickey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-05 16:07:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17328203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Justphoenix/pseuds/Justphoenix
Summary: Donna has a chance encounter with Martha, but doesn't remember who she is. She realizes her memories are missing-and will do whatever it takes to get them back. But at what cost?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "The Rueful Fate of Donna Noble" from the Series 4 soundtrack.

Donna was on her way to hospital cafeteria while Gramps was in with the surgeon. The surgery had gone well, but he’d been a little slow to recover. The surgeon had said this was normal in a man his age. He assured her he felt fine now, this visit was routine, but she didn’t like to think about him being sick. While he was recuperating, he told her “Y’know, I’m not gonna be around forever.” Although his illness-a benign tumor on his leg-wasn’t life threatening, she didn’t want to imagine her life without him. 

He was doing well now, though. Walking just fine without the cane, smiling, puttering around with his telescope. He’s fine, she told herself. She’d get some coffee and read her magazine while she waited.

“Donna!” A young black woman in a white coat had approached her with a smile “What are you doing here? How are you?! It’s been so long!” she moved to hug her, but Donna hung back. She’d never seen this woman in her life “Sorry, do I know you?” 

“It’s me, Martha!” she exclaimed. 

She tried to place her. She’d temped in a doctor’s office a few years ago. “From Dr. Tanner’s practice? I only worked there for a couple months.”

The young woman frowned “No…traveling in the TARDIS? Fighting Daleks?”

“What kind of nonsense are you talking about?” Donna spat out. Who was this crazy woman?

Martha frowned “Oh no. Did something happen? Where’s the Doctor?”

“What doctor?” she asked. Suddenly, she felt warm and dizzy. She put her hand against the wall. “I need to sit down.”  
Martha leapt into action “What’s wrong?” she led Donna her over to a bench. “What are you feeling?”  
“Just…warm….and like the room was spinning.” She said. Martha took her pulse and felt her forehead “You do feel warm.” She said “and your heart is racing. I want to get you into an exam room.”  
“No, no, I’ll be fine.” She tried to stand up, and nearly fell over. Martha caught her. “Sit right down, I’m going to call for a gurney.” 

—  
Fifteen minutes later Donna was sitting up in the exam room, drinking some orange juice. Her symptoms had vanished as fast as they appeared. Martha-Dr. Jones, she’d learned-examined her again and everything seemed to be fine.  
“It was probably hunger. I didn’t eat breakfast this morning. “ Donna said. She looked at the diamond on Martha’s hand “Lovely ring.”  
Dr. Jones frowned “Donna, do you really not remember anything about me?”  
Donna shook her head.  
“Do you remember traveling with the Doctor?”  
“What?” she started to feel a little warm again.  
“Blue police boxes? Different planets? Aliens?”  
“Aliens?! That’s ridiculous!” Donna said. Her dizziness intensified. She put her head in her hands. “Again?” Dr. Jones asked? She nodded. “Lay down until it passes.”  
A few minutes later, she was feeling better again. “Okay, I’m fine.” She sat up.  
Dr. Jones still looked worried. “Let’s see what you do remember. What’s todays’ date?”  
“September 22”  
“ Your address?” Donna provided it.  
“Who is prime minister?”  
“Gordon Brown”  
“Why are you at hospital today?”  
“I came with my granddad. He was seeing the surgeon. Look, I feel fine now, can I go?”  
Martha frowned “I’d like to check a couple more things.” She asked Donna to perform a few simple tasks, do some counting, and remember a list of words. Donna did so. They were stupidly easy tasks. She wasn’t sick.  
“Well, your brain seems fine.” She said. “But I’m still worried you don’t remember me, or the Doctor. Do you remember anything from six months ago?”  
“I’d left a temp assignment to take care of Gramps after surgery. He had a lipoma on his leg.”  
“Okay, how about…nine months ago?”  
Donna thought. Nothing. She couldn’t remember anything. Sometimes her life seems like one day was a repeat of the next, the days were interchangeable. But she should have been able to remember something, shouldn’t she?  
“Twelve months ago?”  
She shook her head. She couldn’t come up with anything.  
“Two years ago?”  
“Oh, I was planning my wedding!” she said “Ugh, I had a big row with the lady from the shop about the flowers. What she was going to give us was ghastly.”  
“What do you remember about your wedding?”  
“My fiance died on our wedding day.” Donna replied evenly. Although now, she was a little fuzzy on the details.  
Martha looked at her quizzically “Did something…bad…happen with your relationship?”  
“No! We loved each other!” She wasn’t going to be interrogated by some woman rambling on about aliens. “Gramps is probably looking all over for me. I need to go.” She got up “Thank you for helping me.” She said brusquely.  
“Wait, look, I can get in touch with…” but Donna was out the door. She’d just felt a little dizzy, after all. She’d always been in good health. This wasn’t anything serious. Maybe she was just worried about Gramps.

\--  
Donna found Gramps in the cafeteria, eating a biscuit. “Hi, sweetheart!” he gave her a big smile “Mr. Bush says my leg healed great. Nothin’ to worry about. Where’ve you been?”  
“Oh, I went to check the gift shop.” She told him. “Ready to go home?”  
“You bet. “ They headed to the parking garage. Donna decided not to tell him about her dizziness and the weird doctor she’d met. She didn’t want to worry him.  
—  
Over the next few weeks, Donna felt fine. No more dizziness or fevers. Maybe she’d picked up some weird illness while she was at hospital and it was gone now. Who knows? She went about her life as usual, going to work, seeing her friends, arguing with Mum.  
It was a Thursday, with a nip in the air, when Donna was running to catch the bus. Mum had needed the car that day. She ran to the stop but she just missed . She screamed at the bus as it pulled away, then sat down to catch her breath. 

Her eyes fixated on a light pole about ten meters away, with a young woman’s picture. The words flashed before her eyes:

Rose Tyler

She walked over for a closer look. It was a missing poster for Rose Tyler, aged 19. The poster looked battered, as if it had been there for some time.  
She suddenly felt warm and dizzy again, as if the whole world was spinning. She made her way to the bench, sat down, and gripped on to it. Not again, she thought. When the next bus came, she carefully boarded, gripping for dear life as the bus stopped and started. She thought she was going to be sick.

She got off, went to work, and sat at her desk until she felt normal again. She’d never met a Rose Tyler, how would she have known that was her name? Maybe she’d seen another Missing poster? She tried to start the filing, but she couldn’t get Rose’s name and face out of her mind. Even though she wasn't supposed to use the internet at work, she Googled the name and started going through the results, making sure she looked busy to her colleagues.  
She spent an hour going through all the Rose Tylers. Finally, she found what she thought was a match: Rose Tyler, 20, of London, had died, three years ago. Maybe she’d heard the name on the news. But something was still not sitting right with her. 

—  
Donna thought of the day of her father’s funeral. It was so cold and windy, only a handful of people from the service came to the burial. She and her mother wore simple black dresses. Gramps, recently recovered from Spanish flu, opted to remain in the hearse. She took her mother’s hand as the coffin was lowered into the grave. She remembered visiting him in the hospital after his heart attack, and her shock that he’d suddenly gone into cardiac arrest and couldn’t be revived.  
She could remember all of that, in clear detail, as if it had happened yesterday. But she couldn’t remember her wedding day. Or a good portion of the previous year. 

She could remember the recent past just fine. But her wedding, and then a large portion of time over the past year-nothing. A complete blank. 

She brought it up to Mum and Gramps over dinner one night. “I’m having a hard time remembering things. Like from the past couple years. Have you noticed anything odd about me? Do I seem forgetful?”

Gramps quickly spoke up “Sweetheart, it was trauma. From losing Dad and Lance. Sometimes things are so painful, you block them all out.”

She frowned “But I remember Dad dying and his funeral. I just don’t remember much about what happened after that. I don’t even remember how Lance died.” 

Mum piped in “You suffered two great losses in a short amount of time. The brain does strange things. I couldn’t tell you what happened for the year after my mother died, I was too consumed with grief.” She and Gramps exchanged glances.

“But I should be able to remember something, shouldn’t I?”  
“Not always, sweetheart." Gramps said." Don’t focus on Lance, focus on moving forward. Why don’t we have some dessert? Your mum made a lovely crumb cake.” He got up to go to the refrigerator.  
Donna couldn’t shake the feeling Gramps was hiding something from her, even though normally they were pretty open with each other. What was he keeping from her? What had happened to her? “Oh yeah, one more thing: did you either of you know a Rose Tyler?” She felt slightly warm.  
There was the slightest pause before Gramps shook his head “Nope, can’t say it rings a bell.”

—  
Donna was determined to find out what had happened with her memory loss.  
She went back to the bus stop where she’d seen the Missing flyer, but it had been torn down.  
She’d gone through a bunch of her old papers. No photos from the missing year. No datebook.  
She’d gone to the library to look at old newspapers. If a man died on his wedding day, that’d be news, right? She’d read plenty of stories like that in the Sun. There was no mention of her and Lance. She couldn’t even find an obituary for him. 

She asked her friends about what she’d been doing that year, and most of them had said they hadn’t seen her much during that time. She discussed it with Nerys over drinks one night at a pub.  
“Strange things happened at your wedding.” Nerys sipped her cocktail.” You left the ceremony, and then you showed up with another man at the reception.”  
“No way!” Donna said. An affair? Was that what she had forgotten?  
“But I don’t think it was like that. There were these explosions, and then you, he and Lance left together. When I talked to you on Boxing Day, you said Lance was gone and he’d called your all sorts of nasty things, like thick and boring, and you were glad to be done with him.” She smiled at a blond man passing by. “Why you bringing up all this now? You haven’t mentioned it in ages.”  
Donna smiled “Just trying to fill in the blanks. Did I say anything about the other man?” Her fiance had called her thick? How dare he! It was a good thing he was dead, or she would have told him off.  
“I asked you if he was your new bloke, you said absolutely not, he’d gone back to Mars!” Nerys laughed.  
“Wait! He was from Mars?” Dr. Jones had said something about aliens.  
“He looked human to me. I just thought it was a saying, you know, men are from Mars…”  
“Then what happened?”  
“I remember you had taken some different jobs and quitting them, then I didn’t see you for a while. I called you on your mobile a few times and we talked. You said you were ‘traveling’.”  
“Where did I travel?”  
“You didn’t say.”  
Donna frowned “Why would I have forgotten traveling? I would have taken pictures. Even if I didn’t have my camera I would have taken some on my mobile.”  
“Dunno” Nerys shrugged “You seemed…different too. Confident. Asking lots of questions. Reminds me of what you’re doing now. Anyway, have you seen the new pictures of Prince William and Kate?” Nerys went on about the royals a bit, but Donna’s mind was still reeling. Where had she gone? Who was this strange man?  
\--  
Donna went to see Dr. Patel, her primary physician, about her memory loss. She gave Donna several tests, not unlike the ones that Dr. Jones had given her at hospital. The tests were still easy. She took blood, and Donna flinched at the needle.  
A few days later, Dr. Patel called her and said everything was normal. She suggested an MRI, which also turned out normal. Dr. Banks referred her to a neurologist, who was unable to find any abnormalities. 

Donna tried to find that Dr. Jones from hospital. The medical staff office informed her Dr. Jones no longer worked there.  
She looked through Mum and Gramps’ belongings when they went out. The only thing she found was a letter from one of Mum’s friends, commiserating about the “awful man” who’d ruined Donna’s wedding.  
The wedding. That’s where her memory loss started. What had happened that day? Had this man done something to her?  
She stopped going out with her friends, and made barely an effort at work. She mostly thought about her memory loss, and why nobody would give her a straight answer about it.  
Laying in bed one night, unable to sleep, she got an idea. She went downstairs to the computer, and applied for several openings for clerical jobs with the NHS. They quickly contacted her for an interview, and she accepted an offer for the Workforce Department. She stayed long enough to get computer access and find Dr. Jones’ contact information.  
—  
Donna approached Dr. Jones’ home, a row house in a fashionable area. She wasn’t answering her phone or returning voicemails. She felt a little nervous-what was she going to find out? She urgently knocked on the door.  
Dr. Jones answered-she looked scared “Donna.” She paused “I’m so sorry. He told me what happened.”  
“Who told you?”  
“It doesn’t matter. I can’t talk to you about it.” She looked dejected “In fact, it’s probably best that you leave.”  
“No.” Donna told her. She’d come this far. She wasn’t leaving without getting what she came for. “Tell me what happened.”  
“I can’t.”  
“Yes you can. I need to know what happened to me.”  
“I’m sorry Donna. I know it would be hard to believe, but it would literally kill you to know.”  
“I don’t care!” Donna shouted “Not knowing is killing me. I’ve barely eaten or slept in the past month. I can’t get it out of my head!”  
They looked at each other in silence for a moment. Finally Martha said “I took an oath. ‘Do no harm.’”  
“This is harm!” Donna shouted “Something strange and extraordinary happened to me. I literally disappeared from my own wedding! I travelled and nobody knows where I went! I became a different person. Maybe a better person. I’m missing a whole piece of myself. It’s not there anymore. I’m incomplete! I need to put it back!”  
Martha considered what she said for a moment “This isn’t the way I’d treat one of my patients. He would never refuse to help somebody. And neither can I. Come in.”  
Donna followed Dr. Jones into her home, which was in disarray with boxes everywhere. “Sorry about the mess. We’re leaving for Somalia in two days. Tom and I will be working with Doctors Without Borders. “ She cleared off a pile of clothes from the couch. Donna sat down.

“So…the symptoms you were having at hospital..the fever and dizziness…those are symptoms of your memories trying to come out. When you’re reminded of something that happened. Have you had any more of those?”  
Donna told her about seeing the Missing flyer. “Rose was…one of us. Who traveled with him. I met her the last time I saw him.” Martha chuckled “I spent so much time being jealous of her, but she’s all right.”  
Donna paused before asking “How did she die?”  
“Oh! She’s not dead. She’s just…somewhere else.” Martha told her “Anything else?”  
“Yeah. Sometimes, just before I fall asleep, a word or an image jumps out at me, something I’ve never seen before. I usually don’t remember them later, but the symptoms recur.”  
“Things are leaking through then.” she said “I need to be careful and not give too many details, in order not to trigger your symptoms.” She continued slowly.  
“The man you met..he’s not human. He can travel through space and time. He chooses people like you and me to come with him and show them things. Different planets. Alien races. The past, the future….It was amazing. Something happened while you were with him. You gained some…new abilities. But it was too much for you to handle. He had to seal off your memories of everything that you did together. He’d thought if you remembered anything, you would die. It seems that you can be reminded of little pieces, though. But if you remember too much…” she trailed off.  
Donna was stunned. She’d traveled to different planets? Met aliens? Nothing remarkable had ever happened to her. “You said something about aliens. Is there any sort of super-duper alien technology that could help me?” she asked.  
“I think he would have had something in mind, if it was possible.” She thought for a moment. “But there’s someone else that may be able to help.”

—  
An hour later, they were in Martha’s car. She said she had friends-human friends-who had their hands on a lot of alien gadgets, and they might have something that could help, but they weren’t completely sure it was going to work. Martha didn’t say anything about where they were going, except it was in Cardiff. “So how did you find my address, anyway?” Martha asked.  
“I broke into the NHS workforce database. Well, I got a job there to get access.”  
Martha laughed “That sounds like a story you told me about how you met him again! You kept looking for strange things happening and thought he’d be involved, and there he was!”  
“Why does he do it?, I mean, choose people to travel with him?”  
“For a long time, I thought he was lonely. And I think that’s true, but I suspect he also likes showing off.” She giggled. “I mean, why us and not some more advanced race, that would know more about the universe? Better to take naive subjects.”  
Donna asked Martha to tell her about what happened with her and the alien man. Martha told her about her adventures in vague terms. Meeting Shakespeare. Going to America in the 1930s. Seeing the moon landings. Being stuck on a spaceship in the far future. Aliens, friendly and hostile. “Why did you stop?” Donna asked.

Martha was slow to reply. “My family was kidnapped by a megalomaniac who wanted to take over Earth. They were a target because I was traveling with him. I felt responsible, y’know? It’s taken them a long time to recover.” She got quiet.  
Donna didn’t press the issue. “Tell me about your wedding.” she said cheerily.  
“Oh, it was two months ago! Just a simple ceremony with about twenty people, our family and closest friends. Tom and I didn’t want a big wedding, and it would have been a nightmare to do that and plan this trip overseas. We’re going to have a big reception in six months when we come back. I’ll invite you.” She smiled, but seemed tense. Donna wondered what she and her friends had planned.

When they arrived in Cardiff, Martha parked the car and they walked to Millenium Centre. They were greeted by a dark-haired man. “Hello, ladies. It’s nice to see you again.” he said with an American accent. He looked at Martha, and she nodded. “Donna, I’m Captain Jack Harkness. My team and I think we can get your memories back.”

—  
Donna looked around in amazement. They were in a huge underground cavern with all sorts of gadgets, something like a Batcave. She had been scanned by several bizarre devices, nothing painful, and now was hooked up to some monitoring equipment. Martha and Jack were in an intense conversation with two other people-they’d been introduced to her as Gwen and Ianto. She couldn’t follow what they were saying. She thought that Captain Jack was rather handsome, but the way he stood near Ianto, with barely any distance between them, she assumed he was taken. And Lance had called her thick, she scoffed. 

They finished their discussion and turned to her. Jack spoke first “We think we have a solution. It’s not perfect, but it’s our best chance.” He held up a metal semispherical device. “This is a neural expander. We don’t understand completely how it works. The race that created it-the Sarbu-were wiped out centuries ago, so we don’t have a lot to go on. One of our previous team members, Owen, was converting it for human use and almost had it working. Martha and Ianto think they can work out the rest of the kinks.  
“We did some scans. We know how to unlock your memories. But if we unlock them completely, your brain will cook. You’ll be dead in thirty seconds. The neural expander will store your additional memories and brain activity. Think of it as extra RAM on a computer. You’ll have to wear it always.”

Donna nodded solemnly. It was an ugly thing, but perhaps she could wear a hat. 

Jack continued. “We’re going to run some simulations, but it’s never been tested. However, I must warn you, there is a good chance it won’t work, and if it doesn’t, you will die. Quickly. Another thing: this technology is not something we know how to replicate. If something malfunctions, we don’t know how to fix it. It’s already very old. We don’t know how long it will work. Days? Years? We’ll give as many parts an upgrade before we turn it on. If you don’t want to try it, we understand completely. Do you want to proceed?”

Donna thought about it for several minutes. She could turn around right now, go back to Chiswick, and live the rest of her life. That was probably the smart thing to do. She was scared-no, terrified. But the thought of spending the rest of her life with a hole in her psyche, waiting for the next bout of dizzy spells, her missing life consuming all her thoughts, was too much to bear. ”I’ll do it.” she said.

He nodded solemnly “This is a big decision. If at any point you change your mind, let us know.”

The team began the preparations. Martha and Ianto got to work on the Sarbu device. Gwen shaved several sections of her head, much to Donna’s dismay. Jack was busy typing some things into a computer.  
Martha handed her some pills “These are targeted immunosuppressants. They’ll prevent your body from fighting the device. They’re designed to cross the blood-brain barrier and effect only your brain, so you shouldn’t have to worry about opportunistic infections.”  
Donna asked for a pen and paper, and wrote a note to Mum and Gramps, in case she didn’t make it. Tears fell as she did.  
—  
“Ready, Donna?” asked Jack.  
“Ready” she squeaked out the words. She was shaking.  
He guided her over to a metal tube, lengthwise on the floor. She laid down in it, trying to keep herself calm. Martha took her hand. They attached things to her scalp. “These will be connected to the Sarbu device. We’ll be able to monitor your brain activity and your vital signs. First we’re going to get your online with the neural expander. Then we’ll unblock your memories.” He turned to Ianto “All set?”

“Stop!” called an unfamiliar voice. Donna sat up and saw a tall, skinny man in a suit. “You’re not going to do this.” In response to Donna’s puzzled face, Martha leaned over and whispered “it’s him.”

—  
“Doc-” Jack started, but the skinny man held up a hand, and looked at Donna. “Don’t say it.”  
Jack nodded and continued “How did you get in here?”  
“Never mind that. What are you doing?” he looked very angry. If this was the traveling alien man, Donna couldn’t picture going to Boots with him, let alone traveling in space.  
Martha jumped in and explained, which Donna still couldn’t completely follow.  
“I won’t let you do that, it’s too risky.” said the skinny man. “Get her out of there. Take her home.”  
“No.” Martha was defiant.  
“I _saved_ her! I saved her, and you want to undo that? How are you going to go back to her mum and granddad and tell her she’s dead?”  
“What would you have told my mum and dad if I’d died traveling with you?” Martha said “I'm headed to a war zone in forty-eight hours. What will Tom tell them if I’m killed? We all take risks. It’s part of life.”  
“The gain is not work the risk. Leave her alone; she’ll be fine.”  
“The status quo is not risk free. Look, memories are leaking through. She’s having more symptoms. At any point in time she could run across something that triggers more memories, and then poof!” Martha spread out her hands.  
“That might happen. But what you’ve got planned, that’s almost certainly going to finish her.” He looked over at the neural expander “ I met the Sarbu once. Brilliant, lovely people, but complicated technology. I barely understood it myself. You lot don’t have a chance. Humans, so arrogant!” He threw a hand up. Donna fumed. Who was he calling arrogant?  
Martha crossed her arms “We’ve done some simulations and we think we’ve got it figured out. Besides, it’s not up to you. She tracked me down, showed up at my door, begging me for a solution. She wants this.”  
“Martha, as a doctor, do you think this is in her best interest? Killing her?”  
“There are worse things than dying.” Jack remarked stonily.  
“Oh yeah, easy for you to say. Like what?” the man snapped.  
“Losing the person you love.” Jack remarked quietly. He grabbed Ianto’s hand.  
“Or having them be tortured.” Martha stared at him.  
The three of them continued to argue and talk over each other for a few minutes, until Donna sat up and shouted “Oi! Are you lot going to argue about me all night like I’m not here?!”  
They all stopped. Donna stood up and stared the skinny man straight in the eye. “Martha’s right. This isn’t your decision to make. Who do you think you are anyway. Just because you’re this space bloke from Mars or something…  
“I’m not from Mars” he interrupted.  
“That’s not the point! Anyway, I was saying, you think you’re better than us humans, more evolved, you get to decide what my fate is? Now I don’t remember you, or what we did together, but I understand you took something from me. A piece of myself. Something special. I’m not me right now, not really. And I’d rather not live if I can’t get that piece back. And I’m not going to rest until I do so! “  
“You don’t need that.” He remarked “You’re not incomplete. You’re a whole person, Donna Noble. Your family thinks you’re special, and they love you the way you are.”  
“I know.” She told him “But I need to do this…for me.”  
He was quiet for a few moments. “You’re right. I’m so sorry. It’s just that, I had a limited time to fix what happened, and…I’ve lost so many people already…I couldn’t bear to lose another.”  
“Use the neural whatits or not, I’m not gonna be around forever.” Donna said, thinking back to Gramps’ words.  
Martha broke in “Will you help us with the implementation? If something goes wrong, you’d know better than anyone how to fix it.”  
“No!” Donna cried out. “What if he tries to sabotage the procedure? Stop it?”  
“Donna” Martha told her. “He know more about alien technology than anyone alive. He’s your best chance of survival.”  
“I give you my word.” He told Donna. “I won’t try to stop it.”  
She was still angry with him “Okay. But you need to bugger off after it’s done.”  
—  
She was in the tube again, with the things on her head attached to the alien doohickey. She heard Ianto’s voice “Neural expander coming online..how does that feel?”  
“Strange” Donna said. She almost felt like she was outside her body.  
“Vitals are stable. Heart rate is still high. Keep taking deep breaths, Donna. ” Martha said.  
Donna focused on her breathing for what seemed like forever. She heard the team’s voices in techno-speak discussing what was happening.  
“We’re going to unblock your memories now. Ready?” Ianto said.  
Donna took a deep breath “Ready”  
Suddenly, she felt as if her head had been slammed into a wall and simultaneously encased in fire. She screamed in agony. The team was rushing around and shouting. Martha said something about her core temp being too high. Her head was flooded with images. Equations, landscapes, people, planets, machines. She heard the Doctor say something about neural dampeners.  
The Doctor! She remembered!  
She sat up, feeling nauseous. The Doctor was looking down at the control panel. “No, no, you’ve got it all wrong.” She only had a few moments. “ You need to set the neural dampeners to a variable random frequency. Use a triodic circuit to redirect the neural activity.” She hoped it was enough.  
He pressed a few buttons “ Yes, it’s working! That’s brilliant! Donna, you’re back!” the Doctor looked up at her, and his face fell “You’re so red…”  
Before she could respond, she passed out.  
—  
Donna slowly opened her eyes. Her head felt heavy, and her face hurt. Where was she?  
She gasped. She remembered what happened “I made it!” she cried. She sat up, wavered slightly at the nausea, then swung her legs over the side of the bed. “I have all my memories, and the best part-I’m part Time Lord! This is amazing!” She hugged the man at the foot of the bed. “I remember everything about everything-my memories and his memories…” she stopped “But wait, I don’t remember you.”  
The man spoke with a Welsh accent “We haven’t met yet. I’m Rhys, Gwen’s husband. The team had some work to do so they asked me to stay with you.” He called out into another room “Hey guys! She’s up!”  
Everyone came running into the room and began talking at once. “Donna! We were so worried we’d lost you!” Martha hugged her “Your brainwaves showed a ton of activity, but we couldn’t wake you up.”  
“Loss of consciousness while the new neural pathways developed. How long was I out?”  
“Twenty one hours.” Ianto said.  
Donna was exuberant. There were so many things she was going to do. There was one person missing “Did the Doctor leave?”  
“Shortly after we got you stabilized. Just like you told him to.” Jack said “Are you still upset with him?”  
“Yeah.” She remembered now, what had happened in her last moments in the TARDIS.  
“He was extremely helpful in getting the Sarbu technology to work. ”Jack added. ”He said if you survived, you’d know how to contact him if you wanted to talk to him again.  
She nodded. She could think of a hundred ways to contact the Doctor, but it wasn’t something she wanted to think about now. She might forgive him..someday  
Jack continued “He did some upgrades to the circuitry, but we still don’t know how long the neural expander will last.“  
“In that case, I better get a move on.” Donna smiled. “Martha, go back to London without me. You’ve got a plane to catch-and lives to save.” She smiled “Jack, I’m going to need a few things from you.”  
—  
Donna came into the backyard, put down the large box she was carrying, and ran over to her grandfather “Gramps!”  
He stood up “Donna! Where have you been? We got your message yesterday and…what is that thing on your head?”  
“It’s me! I remember!” She gave him a big hug. “The Doctor, traveling in the TARDIS, everything!”  
He hugged her back, surprised “But I thought…”  
“Some friends of mine were able to fix it. With a little help.” She winked.  
“I’m sorry I couldn’t say anything…”he began, but she cut him off.  
“I understand; it wasn’t your fault. But we’ve got no time for apologies. We’ve got work to do.”  
“What work?” he asked, confused  
She gestured to the box “First group of parts for our spaceship.”  
His eyes widened “Spaceship?!”  
“Yep. Nothing particularly fancy, but it’ll get us where we want to go. We don’t have all the parts we need here on Earth, so I’m going to need to improvise a bit.” She pointed upwards “You and I are going to explore the stars, up close, together.”


	2. The Best of Times

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> References major character (non-canonical) death.  
> References events from "The Day of the Doctor", "The Time of the Doctor", and " Hell Bent".

The Doctor and Donna sat on the roof of Donna’s spaceship, looking up at the stars. It was a small craft, barely larger than a typical shuttle. They were on the planet Tychao, surrounded by desert. The TARDIS was the only other structure visible for miles around. Donna’s hair has begun to gray and her face has lined, but she still had the same energy, the same attitude.

Donna had called the Doctor to say goodbye. “The neural enhancer’s energy source is almost burnt out. When it’s done, so am I.” She and the Doctor had put their heads together, tried to come up with a solution. The only possibilites were using radioactive materials or attaching Donna to a large generator the size of Wembley Stadium. Neither plan was particularly viable.

They sat in silence for a while. Finally the Doctor spoke “I talked to Jack later. He said you didn’t want to talk to me right then. I respected that. But I would have come anytime you asked. “

“I know” Donna said, not looking at her.

“How long has it been for you, since that day at Torchwood?” 

“Twenty three years. I’m…sorry I didn’t contact you before. I felt a bit embarrassed about the way our last meeting went.” Donna looked to the ground “You were only trying to help me. And if you hadn’t wiped my memory then, I wouldn’t be here now. I wouldn’t have seen all that I have.”

“S’ok Donna.” The Doctor nodded. I’ve had plenty of people angry with me over the years. I mean, that deserved to be.”

Donna turned to face her “I did?”

“Yeah. For me, it’s been over a thousand years since we last saw each other. I was stuck on a planet for a while…and I had a lot of time to think. And I started to understand where you were coming from. I know I said it before, but I’m so sorry, Donna. I felt responsible for what happened to you, and I couldn’t let you die. When that happened, I was fresh out of the Time War. I’d lost my entire race. I’d just said goodbye to Rose…again. I didn’t want to lose another friend. “ In this incarnation, it seemed easier to admit her mistakes.

Donna felt relief wash over her. She wasn’t entirely sure how the Doctor would react to a request for help, if it was just a sense of obligation. But knowing her friend had genuinely been concerned. “Gramps tried to talk me into contacting you, said you were just looking out for me. I think I held out for a long time because I didn’t want to admit he was right. So I kept putting things off…until the neural expander started malfunctioning. I didn’t want to…go…without saying goodbye.”

“I’m glad you did” The Doctor said. Donna wasn’t sure what else to say at that point. 

“Y’ know, a while back, I was faced with a similar choice.” The Doctor told her. “My friend, Clara, she had some…bad guys…after her, and I was going to use a neuro blocker on her. Wipe her memory of me, it would set her free. But she changed the settings so it would hit me instead, because she didn’t want to forget me. I told her I wasn’t sure she’d done it right, and I didn’t know which of us would be affected. But I knew. I thought what happened with you, and I chose to forget her.” 

They were both quiet for what seemed like an eternity.

“So, Wilf” the Doctor paused “Is he…”

“Passed away seven years ago. When I woke up, I built this ship and took him traveling. He had such a great time. I left his ashes on Pluto. He continued to insisted it was a planet.” She chuckled. 

The Doctor and Donna spent hours talking on the roof of her spaceship. Donna told the Doctor of her adventures. She’d been to so many planets, made wonderful friends, and had had several torrid affairs. The Doctor told her about the Ponds, saving Gallifrey, and how she met her current crew. Donna was thoroughly amused at her being married to River. When Donna had sent a signal to the TARDIS, she was surprised a woman answered. It took a little getting used to, but after a short time together, it was like being with an old mate from school. She was still the Doctor. 

Finally, Donna said “I should be going. I’ve got friends I’m supposed to meet in a few days time on Kerberos 3. I’m going to stay with them. I’ve said goodbye to Mum already.” 

“Do you want a ride?” The Doctor asked “One last trip in the TARDIS?”

“Thanks, but no. I’d like the time to be alone and think.” She smiled. “Goodbye, space man.”

“Goodbye, Donna Noble. We did have the best of times, didn’t we?”

“The best of times.” She smiled. The Doctor saluted her, walked back to the TARDIS and went inside. She slid to the floor and fought back tears. Humility was easier now, but even after so many centuries, so many friends loved and lost, saying goodbye was not.


End file.
